Building my Jeep TJ from scratch
I really wanted a Jeep TJ ever since I was 4 years old and my uncle had one, I had fallen in love with the vehicle. Naturally when I turned 18 and started looking to buy my first car that is what I was drawn too, unfortunately for me they were either priced way out of my price range, or they were rusted beyond repair. I got a normal vehicle at that point and worked on fixing it, and eventually developed enough skills that now, 5 years later, I had an idea. I purchased a frame from someone online that was rusty, but still salvageable. Found all the other parts, stripped everything down to bare metal, rust coated it, and built my dream jeep from scratch.
Step 1
I picked up the frame, removed all the axles and suspension (which required a lot of soaking in wd-40 specialist penetrant)
Step 2
Now that it was just the frame I had to make sure it lasted. So I sanded it down to bare metal, primed it with a self etching rust inhibiting primer, coated it in a rust proof paint, and re-enforced spots that I felt were lacking from the factory
Step 3
It was astounding how quickly it started to go together after everything was prepped. But prepping did take a while. I had to get new gears for the diffs, new suspension, and so many other little parts, but finally I was able to make it start looking like a vehicle
Step 4
The tub that I had gotten was pretty rusted and had a bunch of holes, so I had to get that cleaned up, which meant re-enforcing spots where I would be welding in floor (I had to replace the entire floor from the front seats back) or side panels, cutting steel to size and welding it in place. Then priming and rolling bed liner along the inside. Some of it I did before putting it on the frame, some after. I was able to lift the tub onto the frame and align everything with just 3 other people. It was heavy but not too bad
Step 5
It took a little bit to sort the engine back out. I rebuilt the whole engine, replaced all the seals, bearings, clutch, and made it good as new. It’s a 4.2L 6CYL engine, I’m really happy with it. Then I just had to wire it, I purchased a wiring harness and some of it wasn’t working so I re built a bunch of the wiring harness. But after the wires were in I turned the key and it fired right up.
Step 6
All it took after wiring the engine was just putting the seats in, windshield, and roll cage, which maybe took another 3 hours. But it was finally done! There’s a couple things that I got that we’re not quite what I wanted because I was working on a budget, so I will have to change a couple things still, but I’ve taken it off-roading and driven it on the highway, not a shake or wobble and it works perfectly. It’s really an awesome vehicle and a dream come true. The moral of this story, just try, if you want something, just make a list of the steps and start ticking them off and sooner then later you are done! Honestly most of my skills came from practicing for this project. If I can do it anyone can!
